I also like the distinctions you make about the illusion of influence. I have control over most of my investments (real estate related) and have 10% in passive index funds. But I think as I continue to diversify, I like putting it into the two buckets of (1) I control (2) no control (stock market). I like that clarity. The illusion of control does add stress and hassle that detract from enjoying your life. Not worth extra returns to me.
You say that you’re cautious with REITs due to the headwind caused by the rising interest rates. I’m with you, but at the same time earlier you said that you don’t expect the 10yrs yield to go over 3% for a long time. Now we’re nearly there. Does it mean that REITs become more attractive for you (like I see it), or you’re still cautious for some reason?
Which all goes back to my point – since companies change in a lot of unpredictable ways, it makes more sense for passive income to just ride the market by investing in a Total Domestic Stock Market, Total Bond Market, and Total International index funds, with allocations that depend on your goals and time horizon. For income, withdraw 4% or less, depending on what research you believe, and you’ve got a pretty low risk strategy.
Taking Paid Surveys at Home: I was skeptical, at first, until my 17 year old son starting making money at home taking paid surveys. Companies desperately want your opinion, and they are willing to pay for it. The trick, of course, is knowing where to find the paid surveys that pay the best. One of the most popular and legitimate survey sites is Swagbucks. Not only can you make money taking surveys, but you can also make money by watching videos and even surfing the net. They also offer significant cash back for online shopping.
Great post Jim. While it is convenient to lump the entire dividend income as one passive stream, in reality, it is several. If you have 30 companies across 10 major industry sectors, each paying you dividends, then you can consider having 30 streams or at least 10 passive streams, from each of the diverse industry sectors. I find this more diverse than relying on rental income from one investment property tied to one location and one good tenant. Your point about website is absolutely valid – will be great to have Ten Factorial Rocks worth 7 figures in less than 5 years as you have done!
The main leakage from this sector are imports (M), which represent spending by residents into the rest of the world. The main injection provided by this sector is the exports of goods and services which generate income for the exporters from overseas residents. An example of the use of the overseas sector is Australia exporting wool to China, China pays the exporter of the wool (the farmer) therefore more money enters the economy thus making it an injection. Another example is China processing the wool into items such as coats and Australia importing the product by paying the Chinese exporter; since the money paying for the coat leaves the economy it is a leakage.

The net operating income is the amount of money that has been made once all of the person’s expenses have been subtracted from it. For instance, in order for an author to determine his net operating income, he would have to deduct the costs involved in creating the book from the amount that he earned. Designing the book cover, editing the book, and publishing the book are all examples of these kinds of expenses.

It is always fun (when things are going well!) to look back at the various streams to see what’s working and what’s not. I found that a lot of my angel investing just wasn’t working well, fortunately it wasn’t a lot! Side businesses are always nice, vs. pure investments, because of actual control. Plus you can shut it down if things go south… hard to tell someone (and convince them when you’ve only kicked in a few bucks) that it’s time to close up shop and return some capital.
One absolute valuation method which may not be so familiar to most, but is widely used by analysts is the residual income method. In this article, we will introduce you to the underlying basics behind the residual income model and how it can be used to place an absolute value on a firm. (The DDM is one of the most foundational of financial theories, but it's only as good as its assumptions. Check out Digging Into The Dividend Discount Model.)
Here's another example. If a person owns apartments that are rented out at a profit, they earn money each month without working a specific number of hours. If the owner earns $100/month net income from each apartment, the determining factor is how many apartments they own, not how many hours they work. Therefore, they may own 1 apartment and make $100 net income each month, or they could own 500 apartments and make $50,000 ($100 per apartment) each month.

Just like any industry, there is good and not so good. The good part of passive income is that it can lead to multiple streams of revenue. Entrepreneurs understand more income sources means a more stable business and more room to grow. Implementing passive income strategies creates exciting possibilities and opportunities. Passive income sources allow me to have freedom and financial security in my life and business. I can spend my time traveling or writing, knowing that I'm stilling making income.

While using the residual income as the tool to add performance, the focus is to maximize the income from the project and not the increase in returns. It is also better to use residual income in the undertaking of the new project because the use of ROI will reject any potential projects. The reason for this is that ROI yields lower returns on the initial investment whereas the residual income will maximize the income and not the return on investment.

The circular flow diagram illustrates the interdependence of the “flows,” or activities, that occur in the economy, such as the production of goods and services (or the “output” of the economy) and the income generated from that production. The circular flow also illustrates the equality between the income earned from production and the value of goods and services produced.[4]
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There’s a second downside to this model. Although I’ve done advertising and sponsorships in the past, and have made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so, the truth is it takes a lot of time for this business model to start to generate income for you, because you need to build that audience first. In addition, what happens when you build your audience on a platform that ends up changing its algorithm, affecting how often you actually get seen by the audience you’ve built?
Although adding income streams takes time, creating them within your current business is faster and easier than starting completely new income streams from scratch. This method of generating extra sources of income works well for any size business in any industry. For example, Amazon.com started by selling books. Today it sells thousands of other products including its own product, the Kindle, is a print and digital publisher, and now produces television shows. Many service-based business owners add coaching and books to their income streams.
For instance, Richard Branson cannot go through all the activities of each of his 400+ companies, but he goes over the numbers every day to ensure that they are doing well. If he notices any irregularity or drop in income, he calls the CEO to discover where the problem might be and address it. What this means is that you have to monitor your investment day in day out to ensure it is performing optimally.

If you happen to be a photography enthusiast, consider selling your photos to stock-image websites like Shutterstock, Alamy, and iStockPhoto. The demand for high quality pictures in commensurate with the competitiveness of this business. So, if you find a niche (such as landscape photography or business photography) and establish yourself as an expert in it on even one site, you can certainly earn a lot of money in your sleep.

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Residual value also figures into a company's calculation depreciation or amortization. Suppose a company acquires a new software program to track sales orders internally, and this software has an initial value of $10,000 and a useful life of 10 years. To calculate yearly amortization for accounting purposes, the owner needs the software's residual value, or what it is worth at the end of the 10 years. Assume this value is zero and the company uses the straight-line method to amortize the software. Therefore, the company must subtract the residual value of zero from the $10,000 initial value and divide by the asset's useful life of 10 years to arrive at yearly amortization, which is $1,000. If the residual value were $2000, the yearly amortization would be $800 ($10,000 - $2,000/10 years).

Let’s say a company earns $1 a share and pays out 75 cents in the form of a dividend. That’s a 75% dividend payout ratio. Let’s say the next year the company earns $2 a share and pays out $1 in the form of dividends. Although the dividend payout ratio declines to 50%, due the company wanting to spend more CAPEX on expansion, at least the absolute dividend amount increases.

This one may seem simple, but that’s only because it is. If you were to move your savings from a traditional, brick-and-mortar bank with a low-interest rate and into a high-yield savings account online, over time you can make a surprising amount of extra cash. Online banks are FDIC-insured just like the traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, so your money is just as safe.
When you invest in a dividend-paying stock, you are buying a share of the company and you literally become part-owner of that business. As the company grows and generates extra cash that it doesn’t necessarily want to re-invest, it might decide to return some of the extra cash to the shareholders in the form of dividends. And because you own a fraction of the company, you will receive a portion of the cash!
My returns are based on full cash purchase of the properties, as it is hard to compare the attractiveness of properties at different price ranges when only calculating down payment or properties that need very little rehab/updates. I did think about the scores assigned to each factor, but I believe tax deductions are a SIGNIFICANT factor when comparing passive income steams.
Passive income is the gap in my financial plans at the moment. I started investing nearly 2 years ago but I’m so close to the beginning of that journey that I don’t quite see it as making income yet. I’ve been better with employer pensions and they’ve grown a really good amount over the last 12 months, but I won’t get my hands on them for a long time yet.
Peer-to-peer lending means loaning money to other people. Specifically, you lend money to people who don’t qualify for traditional financing. Companies like Lending Club and Prosper offer returns in the range of 4-10%, which are a lot higher than a typical saving account. You will be able to select the right investment for you, based on your risk assessment strategy.

I also noticed that in your passive income chart at the bottom that you don’t include your internet income other than sales from your book. Is there a reason for that? Do you not consider is passive because you are actively blogging all the time to create it? Or do you just not want readers to know how much money you generate from blogging activities?

Which all goes back to my point – since companies change in a lot of unpredictable ways, it makes more sense for passive income to just ride the market by investing in a Total Domestic Stock Market, Total Bond Market, and Total International index funds, with allocations that depend on your goals and time horizon. For income, withdraw 4% or less, depending on what research you believe, and you’ve got a pretty low risk strategy.
​Affiliate marketing is the practice of partnering with a company (becoming their affiliate) to receive a commission on a product. This method of generating income works the best for those with blogs and websites. Even then, it takes a long time to build up before it becomes passive. If you want to get started with affiliate marketing check out this great list of affiliate marketing programs.
Anthony, nice setup! To your question about the rental mortgages, you haven’t said what interest rate you are paying. As a start, if you are paying more than the risk free rate (Treasury bills) which you probably are, then a true apples to apples comparison would be yes, pay off the mortgage. But, if you are comfortable taking more risk, you have other options to invest in which you *hope* will yield you more over the coming years. You also didn’t say whether the rentals generate net income and if so, how much? What is the implied rate of return on the equity you have invested in them? If you pay the mortgages off, you’ll have even more equity tied up, will the extra net income make that worthwhile? Maybe you should use the money to buy more rentals instead, if purchase opportunities still exist in your town. … this is less of an answer than a framework to analyze the decision, hope it is helpful.

The other equation of disequilibrium, if S + T + M < I + G + X in the five sector model the levels of income, expenditure and output will greatly rise causing a boom in economic activity. As the households income increases there will be a higher opportunity to save therefore saving in the financial sector will increase, taxation for the higher threshold will increase and they will be able to spend more on imports. In this case when the leakages increase the situation will be a higher level of equilibrium.

Whether you know how to flawlessly apply eye makeup or build a wooden shelving unit, you can create an online course or video for others to follow. Websites like Udemy and Teachable allow you to build a course, such as how to learn a new language or write a cover letter. Once you build your course and set the price, there’s little work to be done. You’ll receive residual income from each person who signs up to take your course.
Reality One: We live in a competitive and fast changing world. Business has become highly specialized and niched because knowledge is growing exponentially, requiring specialized skills to employ it properly. Successfully competing in many widely varying fields is contradictory to the specialization and complexity required by our current business climate.

When you build a business, you're giving up active income (instead of working for pay, I'm volunteering at my own business) for future active and passive income. In the meanwhile, you'll need a way to pay for your expenses. It could be that you're building a business on the side, so you still have a day job, or you're living on those savings. Either way, you need a cushion.

Thanks for asking. https://passiveincomemd.com/what-is-passive-income/ gives a good summary of the definition I use. But in brief, it’s income that isn’t proportional to the time you physically put into acquiring it. It doesn’t mean it’s not without work or effort. It’s just that most of the work is done up front and it continues to pay off long after that initial effort. Real estate fits into that box. There’s definitely a spectrum but compared to what we do as doctors, where our compensation is directly linked to our time, most of these things are quite passive.
It’s a (mostly) short term, higher risk, higher reward place to invest cash that has a low correlation with the stock market, but is far more passive than buying and managing properties, has more opportunity for diversification than private placements (minimums of 5-10K, rather than 100K), and most of the equity offerings (and all of the debt offerings) provide monthly or quarterly incomes. Unlike a REIT, you can choose exactly which projects you wish to invest in.
Those who can reap the benefits of residual income have typically put in an immense amount of effort and time in the beginning to be able to enjoy the rewards later on. Residual income, therefore, does not result in instant gratification. Those interested in earning residual income must have a lot of patience and determination to work as hard as necessary to achieve their ultimate goals of a long-standing income stream.
Nice list. What keeps my family from getting more streams is the time it takes. I would actually be willing to work part time in medicine and make less money with a side-hustle just to keep things fresh and prevent burnout. That requires some degree of FI and some time to read about the new endeavor. Maybe when my kids are both in school, we we see. Until then, I’ll keep reading your posts for ideas.
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I wish there was a product that did this,” then invent it! Create a product, medical or otherwise, and sell it as a company or get royalties for it. It’s not impossible to figure out, I have many friends who have taken a concept to market. Don’t overlook an invention as a fantastic means of attaining passive income.
So one thing I have to disagree with after having done hours and hours of research from Multiple CPA’s is “Dividends – 21% (passive)”. Thats actually not right. Thats actually “active”. I actually paid 2 different CPA’s to do research on this topic. One of them I paid 500 dollars to actually dig out the IRS tax code and “prove” it. If you are active in a business and the business pays you dividends its still active income (not passive).

For example, you can design digital products, like animal clipart or a downloadable wedding poem that could be printed by the customer. Your design could be resold thousands of times without needing to create each item or ship it. Once you create your digital product and list it on a site like Etsy or Ebay, the revenue flows in with little oversight.

The second form of residual income, passive income, is often a vital part of wealth creation. There are only so many hours in each day, and when a person trades hours for dollars, there is a maximum amount of income that person can earn. For instance, if a person earns a specific amount each hour, there is a limit to how many hours are available to work. Once they reach that maximum amount of time, they cannot earn more money.